A new direction for the North

Northern Ireland is attracting big-budget international movies and major film stars. But does this mean an end to political films about the Troubles? Una Bradley reports.

Despite all the talk of the "peace dividend", few could have scripted just how successful the North's film industry would become in such a short space of time. From involvement in Breakfast On Pluto, to upcoming releases with Tim Robbins, Nicholas Roeg, and Pedro Almodovar attached, the sector is radiating good health.

It's not only the mounting tally of titles, however, that's being celebrated. The fact that many of these new films steer clear of referencing the Troubles has been viewed as evidence of a burgeoning cultural confidence. Who wants The Crying Game when you can have Closing The Ring, an epic World War Two love story straddling Belfast and North Carolina? Even the most cursory of glances at the latest crop of features filmed north of the border reinforces the trend: a nail-biting slasher movie (Wilderness); a supernatural thriller based on a Fay Weldon novel, re-uniting Donald Sutherland and his Don't Look Now director Nicholas Roeg (Puffball); a feelgood comedy about a wannabe country 'n' western star (In Like Flynn). The big political film that made such headway in the 1990s - In The Name of the Father, say, or Some Mother's Son - is nowhere to be seen. Sectarianism, it would seem, is so last century.

Speak with hip young film-makers and many will tell you the time has come and gone for the cinematic lexicon of bombs, bullets and bad Ulster accents.

"We've seen quite enough of films that explore the darker side of the Northern Irish psyche," says Patrick FitzSimons, a producer with Belfast company Borderline Films, whose latest picture stars Vinnie Jones and Samantha Mumba and is set in London. "The time is right to move on; we're on the cusp of a bright new future, but still need to shed some of the old clothing." Others feel similarly bound to reflect the new values of a post-conflict generation.

"When I started writing, the last thing I wanted to write was a Troubles drama," admits Armagh-born Daragh Carville, who penned the screenplay for the soon-to-be released Middletown, boasting Matthew McFadyen in the lead role. "The iconography of some Troubles fiction was so over-familiar. I'm not talking so much about the big films like In The Name of the Father; probably more the bad TV dramas like Harry's Game. I found it boring."

The quango which funds and promotes the sector, the Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission (NIFTC), is only too happy to talk up the bubbling stew of new ideas among the North's film community - after all, it's good for business. In today's ultra-competitive market, the North is both competing against, as well as co-operating with, the south of Ireland, Britain, and beyond, in a bid to keep cameras rolling. It helps, when marketing such a small region, if you can also present your creative talent as forward-looking, progressive, and capable of teaming up with professionals from all over the world.

Patrick FitzSimons stresses the point: "We can't afford to be hemmed in by the past. We are competing in a global market for a very small pool of funding. We've got to think outside the box, cliche as that may be."

FEW PERSONIFY the trend from inward to outward-looking more neatly than a writer such as Terry George. A native of Belfast who had close-up experience of the political situation - he was interned in the early 1970s - his output used to be exclusively Troubles-related, from In The Name of the Father to The Boxer. Now based in the US, his last film was the Oscar-nominated Hotel Rwanda.

Given the new emphasis on building international relationships, it's no wonder the NIFTC was cock-a-hoop when a Belfast production company, Hot Shot Films, recently teamed up with Pedro Almodovar's El Deseo studio to make The Secret Life of Words, an intense psychological drama with Tim Robbins and Sarah Polley.

The decision to set the drama in Ireland was purely practical - an oil rig was needed, and Belfast could provide one in dry dock - yet the knock-on effect was a feast of work for the North's film crew across the whole range of disciplines, from wardrobe to set design to transport.

The payback of such a deal is always good - for every pound the NIFTC allocates in funding, it requires a production to spend four times that amount locally; the bigger the project, the better the return.

While some commentators argue that tax breaks lure foreign film-makers to use the North as a cheap outdoor studio at the expense of indigenous projects, Richard Williams says it's a balancing act - the more big productions that shoot in the North, the more the industry can support less commercially viable movies from its own community. Over the past three years, film-makers have injected £5.6 million (€8.3 million) into the North's economy.

An even bigger boost to the bank balance is in store once Closing The Ring begins filming. The $20 million flick will not only be one of the biggest studio films ever to shoot in the North, it will also bring a cast of Hollywood royalty: Richard Attenborough directing Shirley MacLaine, Peter O'Toole and Dennis Hopper. "It's a genuine Irish-American story," trumpets Richard Williams, chief executive of the NIFTC. "It's big and bold, it has a wonderful script. It's the perfect example of what's possible."

WITH ALL the big bucks and celebrities jetting in, it's easy to forget what used to attract film-makers to the North - the ready-made dramatic brew of civil conflict, conspiracy theories and shady government goings-on. Bearing in mind the still-shaky nature of the peace process, have those stories really gone for good? "There is definitely a new generation with a new voice," says Richard Williams. "But it's an evolution rather than a revolution. I'm very keen to see it. At the same time, I wouldn't be advocating the airbrushing of history. I think what's happening in many instances is a change of focus.

"If you take a recent film like Mickybo & Me, it was a universal, coming-of-age story, but the Troubles were there in the background. I didn't think it was a Troubles drama, but someone else could watch that and think, 'another Troubles film'. People here are very sensitive about the Troubles; there's an anxiety about how we present ourselves."

Even the low-budget, "arty" pictures emanating from the North betray a certain ambivalence toward recent history. Although Daragh Carville's Middletown is set in a border town in the 1960s, there's not so much as a hint of the violent turmoil about to unleash.

Carville, who is mostly known for his theatre work, says the question of whether or not to address the Troubles head-on has been an ongoing dilemma. "I have really wrestled with this. Most of what I write is set in the North. My writing is steeped in the language and landscape of the North. I'm a dramatist, so I'm writing about conflict and history and division. But I never wanted to write something with an agenda, and there is so much else to politics than what passed for it here for so long. I have mixed feelings. To say all the dark stuff is in the past, and we're bounding off into this bright, new future . . . I'm not sure. Of course, as we move out of conflict, writing will open up more.

"But, as someone who's trying to be creative at this point in history, you're in a bind. Do you tackle what's been happening head-on, and run the risk of being exploitative and slipping into cliche, or do you just bury your head in the sand and pretend it hasn't happened?"

Former Hollywood scriptwriter and Belfast native Brendan Foley concedes his perspective may be coloured by the ex-pat experience, but he considers himself to be more "old school" when it comes to the Troubles debate. He's putting the finishing touches on his film, Johnny Was, which at first sight is a world away from screen depictions of "Norn Iron".

Beneath the upbeat reggae soundtrack and the multi-cultural Brixton setting, however, is an investigation into the nature of cultural identity, particularly that of the main character Johnny (played by Vinnie Jones), a London-Irish man who's running away from some unspecified paramilitary involvement in the Troubles.

With typical Belfast humour, Foley describes it as "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner - with firearms". So the Irish question isn't out of bounds for him? "I can understand that for younger film-makers, they want to get away from Troubles cliches, but the way I see it, it's part of our history. If you look at Vietnam, it was only when the active phase of the conflict ended, the films started coming out."

Interestingly, the next project Foley hopes to get off the ground is much closer to home. With a working title of Soldiers, his script involves an SAS captain and an IRA sniper, in 1970s rural Northern Ireland, who get hooked on trying to understand each other's point of view.

Producer Brendan Byrne, of Hot Shot, concurs with Foley that some of the best Troubles dramas may be yet to emerge. Although Byrne welcomes the opening up of film to embrace new genres such as horror and romantic comedies, he warns of trying to run before we can walk.

"The current slate of films may not be about the Troubles, but you've got to be careful not to believe the hype too much either. Some of this talk of leaving the Troubles behind is the stuff of press releases and marketing-speak. The truth is somewhere in between. Some of our best films were Troubles films. You can't throw the baby out with the bathwater."

Daragh Carville agrees it might be premature to give the political storyline the last rites. "The ironic thing is that, despite everything I've said, the best film to come out of the North in recent years, as far as I'm concerned - possibly the best film to ever come out of the North - is Paul Greengrass' Bloody Sunday. So where does that leave us?"

Una Bradley is a journalist at the Belfast Telegraph